


supernal (red like midnight, black like roses)

by the merienes tranch (lilhalphys)



Series: how rare and beautiful [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Kallura Appreciation Day, Trans Female Character, Trans Keith (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 06:34:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13265727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilhalphys/pseuds/the%20merienes%20tranch
Summary: def: being or coming from on high; heavenly, ethereal“Shiro says that you have beautiful skies on earth.”Keith’s whole body is wracked with shock as she turns ungracefully on her toes to face Allura, who is leaning on the side of the doorway into the observation deck, eyes half-closed.“Princess, I - you -”Her shoulders give a slight shake, and her laughter escapes quietly, no more than a breath. “Startled you? Sorry.”a companion to sideral





	supernal (red like midnight, black like roses)

**Author's Note:**

> these are not stand alones! to get the full picture, it is critical that you read both, at least in my opinion.

Night is synthetic in space. It’s like nylon. Sure, it’s snug, but there’s always that one part that stretches too much or not enough to break the illusion of a second skin. Night on Earth is stripped bare, to the point where you’re choking on all the nothing in the air.

God, Keith misses nights on Earth. It was when she could breathe in stardust, when she could lay on the roof of her shack and graze the edge of the universe with her fingers if she just reached far enough. She’s beyond that now, beyond her sun and floating amongst nebulae she couldn’t even dream of from the comfort of bending, rusting sheet metal against her back. In spite of, or perhaps even because of that, the twenty-four hour sky she always called “night” at home seems fake, an ever-changing painting hung up on every wall. 

A sunrise breaks the surface of a planet at the very edge of her periphery, and she wonders how many people are watching, how many sunrises she could have seen if she were a little worse at reading carvings in rock.

“Shiro says that you have beautiful skies on earth.”

Keith’s whole body is wracked with shock as she turns ungracefully on her toes to face Allura, who is leaning on the side of the doorway into the observation deck, eyes half-closed. 

“Princess, I - you -”

Her shoulders give a slight shake, and her laughter escapes quietly, no more than a breath. “Startled you? Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Keith wants to turn away, wants to go back to her planets and nebulae, but Allura holds her gaze like bunches of fabric from her nightgown, delicately between her fingers.

She follows Allura with her eyes as she moves from the doorway to the glass wall where Keith stands, a safe distance away, close without invasion.

“Tell me about them.”

“It’s late -”

For a moment, so fast Keith barely sees it, Allura’s shoulders tense and draw up towards her. Her voice strains against the artificially thick air in the room. “Please, Keith.”

“Okay.”

She pulls in a deep breath and notices, for the first time in months, that the air on the castle takes like metal, not as fresh as her desert’s. 

“I guess it - it all depends on our sun. Earth orbits a star, and it makes our sky change colors. Most of the day it’s blue, and the sun is so bright you can’t look anywhere near it without hurting yourself. And at night it looks like, like,” she makes a slow, wide gesture to the pane of glass separating them from the cold, beautiful void, “I never really thought much of it until now, now that…”

The look on Allura’s face says she doesn’t have to explain herself.

“I always - I always loved sunrises and sunsets, though.”

Allura blinks. Her hands unclench from her dress, and her whole face seems to soften. There’s something unreadable in her eyes, or maybe it’s something Keith just doesn’t want to read.

“What were they like?”

“Uh, so whenever the sun would rise or set - that’s implied by the name, I guess, uh, the sky would just…light up. In all kinds of colors, red and orange, violet and, and…” As she trails of, she turns and meets Allura’s eyes, looks deep into them. “It was like the whole world was on fire, if you could get far enough away from the city.”

“Oh, Keith, that’s...so,” she reaches into the little bubble between them, the little safety, and she almost touches Keith’s shoulder before -

She flinches away. Allura’s face melts into something a little bit guilty, a little bit understanding.

Keith coughs. “Now...tell me about Altea”

___

_ The grassy fields, dotted with pink like a child’s bedspread, are easily visible from her window, stories above the ground and wide, designed just so she could see so very far.  _

_ As much love as she has for the flowers, she can’t help but ignore them in favor of the lights dotting the sky. She remembers being a child, Father chastising her for staring too long at the bright suns, but she never listened. _

_ Not even now, as the sky is speckled by lights she thinks must be brighter than any sun. Explosions. They are interrupted, momentarily hidden from her as Galra ships speed overhead. Her mind conjures a sick melody of the screams of the people, her people as their world is torn apart, razed until the smoke dissipates in the lack of atmosphere. _

_ The fires just begin to devour the flower fields within her vision when she hears an urgent knock upon her door.  _

___

Later, alone in her room, Keith wonders whether it's her or Allura she thinks is made of glass. She decides to check the Castle’s library for books on astronomical phenomena. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you!


End file.
